


Letting Off Steam

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Blow Jobs, Exhibitionism, Feelings Realization, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27829972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: They usually don’t talk when they’re in the thick of it.They’re in Johnny’s room for a change since Haechan had gone out with Taeil and Jeno. As soon as Johnny had caught wind that he was gonna have the room to himself, he’d texted Mark, and Mark had come over five minutes after Haechan had left.Right now, Johnny’s trying to keep his pace slow, trying to match the motion of the guy who’s completely buried inside the tight pussy of the woman on screen. Her moans are believable, but he isn’t focusing on her noises.He’s focusing on Mark’s.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 64
Kudos: 645





	Letting Off Steam

**Author's Note:**

> I really just wanted to write a johnmark mutual masturbation fic and then ended up with... this. It's a little angsty, a little bit of a deviation from my usual style. I hope you like it still!
> 
> This isn't beta-ed save for the first three parts that I sent to Ain to scream over haha
> 
> Please let me know if I'm missing any tags!
> 
> ((This is also very lowkey dedicated to ao3 pssychotropical, frinkles, monopolizers, and yutayummy whose works have inspired me in ways I cannot even begin to explain. Thank you for the work you all put out!))

I.

They usually don’t talk when they’re in the thick of it.

They’re in Johnny’s room for a change since Haechan had gone out with Taeil and Jeno. As soon as Johnny had caught wind that he was gonna have the room to himself, he’d texted Mark, and Mark had come over five minutes after Haechan had left.

Right now, Johnny’s trying to keep his pace slow, trying to match the motion of the guy who’s completely buried inside the tight pussy of the woman on screen. Her moans are believable, but he isn’t focusing on her noises.

He’s focusing on Mark’s.

Mark’s got a really nice dick, thicker than his frame would suggest, and maybe about half an inch shorter than Johnny’s, if Johnny’s furtive glances in between strokes are able to give him an accurate look.

And Mark is... noisy. It’s clear that he tries to keep it down, tries to restrain himself when they do this together, both their cocks out and slick in their hands.

This is their dirty little secret, their _bonding activity_ that no one knows about, and everyone assumes its just them being secretive about their music, which is true for the most part, except for the times when they’re jonesing to get off and pull up a porno and jack off next to each other.

It doesn’t make sense, and it’s a little fucked up, but for some reason, after the first time, it just made sense to them. They both liked it, they both had the same taste in porn, and they just… kept doing it.

“Oh, fuck,” Mark mutters under his breath, and Johnny closes his eyes, thumbing over the slit of his dick, listening as Mark’s breathing starts to become erratic.

Johnny works so, so hard to not stare. He has to physically restrain himself from looking over, even if he’s desperate to see what Mark’s cock looks like when he’s about to come, desperate to see what Mark’s face looks like when he does.

On-screen, the guy has pulled out, and the girl has two fingers rubbing her clit while he eats her out, tongue lapping up the creamy slick that leaks out from between her folds.

Next to him, Mark’s thrown his head back, and his feet are planted on Johnny’s mattress, his hand flying over his dick. “Fuck, fuck, I’m close.”

They usually don’t talk when they’re in the thick of it, but today, Johnny’s resolve crumbles, and he closes his eyes, so near the edge, and says, “Yeah, Markie, that’s it,” and that’s when he hears Mark groan out, the wet sound of his hand over his dick enough for Johnny to bite down on his lip, and feel his release spill over his hand.

Johnny gets up to get them both a washcloth from the bathroom when they’ve both caught their breath. Mark tucks himself back into his pants, Johnny hands him a bottle of water, and then like nothing happened, they get back to talking about the new song they’re working on.

They don’t talk about what Johnny said.

II.

It doesn’t leave Johnny after it happens.

It’s a little embarrassing that he’s standing with his forehead pressed against the tiles in his shared bathroom with Haechan, the water running over his body while he strokes himself to completion after what’s proving to be a fairly disappointing jack off session.

When he touches himself alone, without Mark around, it always feels so flat now. It’s like Johnny’s mind and his dick have equated pleasure and release with how Mark sounds when he’s chasing _his own_ pleasure and release, and it’s a little fucked up, if Johnny is fully honest with himself.

He keeps playing their last session together over and over in his head, the way he’d said, “Yeah, Markie, that’s it,” like he had any control over how Mark was touching himself.

Johnny’s balls tighten, pull up as he teeters on the edge, and behind his eyelids, he imagines what would have happened if he’d given Mark a different directive. If Johnny had said, “Go slower,” would Mark have done so? If Johnny had said, “Don’t come yet,” would Mark have held off?

“Fuck, Mark,” Johnny groans, and spills into his hand, cum splattering against the wet tiles.

III.

**[Mark 11:39 p.m.]**

_> Yo u wanna come over? _

_> have the room to myself again _

It’s been weeks since he and Mark have had time alone owing to the fact that Mark’s manager has been staying at the dorms more often lately. It’s comeback season approaching, and they’ve all been too tired and too busy and too surrounded by people to have any chance to unwind.

Johnny glances over at Haechan, who’s got his headset on and is yelling at Yangyang while they play Overwatch. Johnny sits at the desk next to his, editing an episode of JCC.

**[Me 11:41 p.m.]**

_> I’ll be there in a few_

It’s a little suspicious that he’d leave the room in the middle of his editing work, but he’s banking on the fact that Haechan’s red in the face and really in the thick of his game to notice Johnny slipping out.

He makes his way out of their apartment and up to the tenth floor quickly, grateful that no one had ridden the elevator with him, and even more grateful that when he keys in the code to the door, the living room and kitchen are blessedly empty.

He slips into Mark’s room without knocking, and he finds Mark sitting on the bed with his legs crossed at the ankle, his laptop perched on his lap.

“Wassup,” Mark says, before turning his attention back to the screen. “I found something uh—different, if you’re okay with checking it out.”

“Yeah, I’ll watch whatever, man,” Johnny says, locking the door behind him and striding over to Mark’s bed.

He’s admittedly a little nervous about this. Just a bit. It’s been a while since last time, and in the space between then and now, Johnny has jerked off approximately five times with Mark’s name on his lips. He doesn’t like thinking about it too much, the guilt and shame a blanket over him as soon as the pleasure would recede.

Johnny isn’t prepared for what greets him on the screen when Mark hits play and adjusts the laptop on the pillow between them.

It’s a threesome, with two men and a beautiful woman who has small tits and plump lips. They’ve never watched anything that had more than one guy before, in all the times they’ve taken turns choosing the content for their activities. Mark keeps his eyes fixed on the screen, still like he’s holding his breath.

Like he’s waiting for Johnny to comment on it.

“Nice,” is all Johnny can say as he adjusts his ass on the bed, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other foot planted on the floor.

The video is overwhelming, the two men focusing on the woman who has her fingers pinching her own nipples. He can feel himself slowly starting to fill out as they watch, the men’s hands roaming over her body, spreading her legs while they take turns slipping two fingers into her. It’s really very hot, and Johnny palms himself through his joggers.

From his peripheral vision, he sees Mark do the same, and Johnny pulls his lower lip between his teeth, biting down to remind himself to keep his eyes on the porno they’re watching, and not the way Mark spreads his legs more, his shorts obviously tenting.

The woman moans as her first orgasm hits at the hands of the bigger man onscreen, but Johnny nearly gets the wind knocked out of him when the other man kneels behind him and starts to kiss along his neck, while stroking his cock.

“Fuck,” Mark mutters before hissing out a breath and Johnny’s heart, already racing, double-times its pace. He can tell that Mark’s about to pull his dick out of the confines of his shorts, and Johnny follows suit.

Johnny’s cock is already leaking precum, that’s how wound up he is, and he bucks up into his hand when he hears the click-squelch of Mark squirting lube into his hand. The sound of Mark’s sigh is almost too much, especially since onscreen, the two men have started kissing while the bigger man buries his dick inside the woman.

Johnny—Johnny wants to touch. Or at least watch, watch Mark properly. He wants to turn his head and see it play out on Mark’s face, wants to touch himself while Mark touches himself.

But of course, Johnny doesn’t do any of that. He keeps his eyes locked on Mark’s laptop, even if his vision starts to blur, because even if he can’t see, he can feel—can feel the mattress shake a bit from the movement of Mark’s arm, can feel Mark push himself up with his feet, can hear the small, tiny mewling that leaves Mark’s lips, and Johnny doesn’t even need the lube, he just holds the garter of his joggers down while he hurriedly spits in his right hand, and gets back to stroking himself from base to tip.

“Jesus,” Mark sighs, his eyes closed when Johnny glances over quickly. “Fuck, I’m—“

Mark’s breath hitches, his moan louder than it’s ever been with Johnny around, the sound of skin on skin becoming wetter as Johnny squeezes his eyes shut. He’ll end up staring at Mark’s dick if he doesn’t.

 _You’re so fucking beautiful,_ Johnny thinks, blinks his eyes open, and then angles his dick down back into his underwear as he comes in long, thick spurts.

He barely lasted ten minutes. Fuck.

A few minutes of silence pass before Mark hands him a box of tissues, the garter of his own shorts now securely back up, all traces of Mark’s mess now gone while Johnny still comes down from his high.

“Thanks, I really needed that,” Mark says, rising from the bed. As if Johnny had anything to do with anything. As if Johnny had aided in Mark’s orgasm when all Johnny had done was get off to Mark getting off. Christ. Maybe _Mark_ gets off on Johnny getting off. Maybe Mark wants him, too. Maybe Mark lies awake as well, his hand down his shorts, wishing Johnny was around.

But instead of asking any of that, Johnny just says, “Yeah, dude,” as he pulls his joggers and boxers back on properly. “Me too.”

Johnny can’t explain it, not even to himself, how it’s possible for them to keep doing this, this strange set-up where they’re essentially being voyeurs toward each other, and then when they finish, it’s like nothing has changed. They can slip back into conversation as if they don’t know what the other sounds like when they’re coming.

He hears the water running in Mark’s bathroom, the door wide open. Johnny can see Mark washing his hands with soap, looking at himself in the mirror, his thick-framed glasses slipping down his nose. He allows himself to trace his eyes over Mark’s bod, hidden under the too-baggy shirt, the loose basketball shorts that gently curve over Mark’s ass.

It’s been a running joke for years now, Johnny’s fascination over Mark’s butt, except that it’s not funny anymore. Johnny fixes his gaze on it and his brain suggests that it would probably feel really nice to touch it.

“Dude, have you caught on Queen’s Gambit?” Mark calls out, the tissue in his hands before he steps back into the room. Johnny snaps his eyes up and clears his throat before he says, “Ah, I’m on like, episode five maybe?”

“Oh, sweet,” Mark replies. “You wanna continue watching? I’m just about to start six but I don’t mind rewatching.”

Johnny should go back down to his room, honestly. His mind’s too crowded, skin’s too itchy. He wants to bury his head under his pillow and replay Mark’s, “Jesus, fuck, I’m—” over and over in his head until sleep takes over.

“Yeah, man, I’m down,” Johnny says instead.

Mark clicks out of his incognito tab, as if that erases the proof of the shit they get up to, and pulls open Ten’s Netflix account.

IV.

It’s not gay cos they don’t touch each other.

That’s what Johnny’s thinking when he’s sitting on the toilet with the seat cover down and his AirPods in, watching mutual masturbation compilation videos with the room still filled with steam from his shower.

It’s not the first time he’s seeing any sort of porn with just dudes, but it is the first time he’s seeking them out in succession. Most of it consists of moderately attractive white bro-dudes who stare listlessly at the screen and jack off together, and Johnny wonders if this is how he and Mark must look, though he would like to believe that they’re more good-looking than the men in these videos.

Johnny doesn’t get all the way hard watching all of this. Instead, he’s thinking about how the dicks don’t compare to how nice Mark’s looks. He’s thinking about how the ugly grunts of these guys don’t hold a candle to how pretty Mark’s breathy moans sound. He’s thinking about how in the videos where the other guy offers his hand, Johnny would give anything to do the same to Mark.

Would Mark let him? Would Mark pull away? Would Mark hit pause on the video and turn to Johnny, scandalized, and say, “Dude, what the fuck?”

Johnny’s never felt this way about anyone else, has never _wanted_ anyone else like this. It’s less about the fact that Mark is a man and more about the fact that it’s Mark. He knows they’re both kind of standing in a grey area here, given what they do.

Johnny can’t even remember who suggested it first, this whole thing. They’d been talking about sex, just one of the many, many things that he and Mark can talk about because they’re best friends even if they’re colleagues. What girls they liked, what they’d do if they could date, who they would date. One thing led to another, shot after shot of soju in Mark’s room until they’d gotten to talking about the kind of porn they liked.

The details escape him, but Johnny remembers how that conversation had led to Johnny pulling up one of his favorite clips of a girl desperately riding a guy in reverse cowgirl and showing it to Mark and Mark shifting in his seat, shorts clearly tenting. Next thing he knows, they’d both got their dicks out, stroking themselves fast and quick, focused on her moaning, on the way her tits had bounced with every movement, how she’d squirted all over the guy’s dick multiple times before he spilled inside of her.

“Johnny-hyung, are you almost done? I gotta shower, too,” Haechan says from outside, and Johnny scrambles to pull his AirPods out, shove them back in the case, and secure his towel tighter around his waist.

“Almost!” he shouts back and takes his other towel to his hair, his half-mast boner effectively killed now.

V.

It’s been two months.

They’ve all been too busy flitting between broadcast studios and music video sets and recording booths to take a fucking break, and it’s been two months of inconsistent time spent with Mark that it’s starting to drive Johnny up the walls.

Except it isn’t just the inconsistent time spent, it’s so many things. It’s how Mark had decided to start owning the fact that he is, in fact, really fucking hot, and acts accordingly, and it’s affecting Johnny in ways he didn’t think was possible. Johnny watches him when they’re in the recording studio hunched over printed out lyrics and teaching Sungchan how to execute the verse for their comeback, watches him when they’re in hair and make-up and the artist applies just the faintest contour to emphasize Mark’s cheekbones, watches him when they’re in-between takes, laughing with Lucas and Taeyong. He feels longing. He feels longing and yearning and the smallest, tiniest, most embarrassing lick of jealousy.

The distance and the time apart makes Johnny’s heart grow fonder towards Mark, which is terrible because the last fucking thing he needed was to have whatever shameful lust directed at Mark turn into something more, something less surface-level than just wanting to touch his dick, something that has Johnny imagining what it would be like to kiss Mark breathless in a park, on the street, on Mark’s bed.

 _Speak of the goddamn devil,_ Johnny thinks when Mark plops on the couch next to him, his ash-black hair stiff with hairspray, the red trousers pulling tight over his thighs. Johnny glances at the creases, at the bulge there between Mark’s legs, fully aware of how much a grower Mark is, and then looks away.

“Dude, I saw your photos,” Mark says, his voice full of awe. “You’re like—whoa, for real, a model!” Mark gestures to his head with both his hands, makes a sound like an explosion. “Mind-blown, yo.”

Johnny smiles, rolls his eyes, nudges Mark with his elbow. “Thank you, thank you, I have been waiting for them to sign me for ages.” He throws in a long-suffering sigh just for good measure.

Mark laughs, even if it’s not funny, and Johnny relishes in it. He hasn’t just spent all this time thinking about Mark’s dick and how much he wants to touch it. He’s also thought about how much he just missed Mark’s company, even if they live in the same fucking building. There’s a reason why they’re best friends.

“Hey uh,” Mark says after a moment’s silence. “I know we’re hella busy but, like—do you—“ Mark breaks off in a sigh, picking at some thread sticking out near his knee. “Do you wanna come over later?”

They don’t talk about it outside of texts. This is the first time they’ve even alluded to it outside of the dorms.

Johnny’s mouth goes dry. Mark’s been thinking about him, too, if he’s bringing it up here, in the studio, where they’re surrounded by all their other members.

“Yeah,” Johnny replies, not looking at Mark. “It’s been—it’s been a while.”

Mark hums, looking off to the side. “I’ll find a way to get Jong-hoon-hyung out. I’ll text you.” And then he leaves, going off to join Renjun and Xiaojun where they’re laughing over something on Renjun’s phone.

Johnny watches him go, his eyes raking over Mark’s tight trouser-clad ass as he walks over to their friends. He digs his fingers into his thigh, and counts down the hours until they can leave and he can slip back into Mark’s room.

VI.

Mark doesn’t succeed in getting his manager out of his room, but fate steps in for them with Haechan’s announcement that he’s having dinner and drinks with his same-aged friends. That buys them some time. Johnny pretends that he isn’t giddy with this information.

Mark slips into his room fifteen minutes after Johnny gives him the go-signal, and Johnny’s just gotten out of the shower, his skin still soft-damp, his hair still mostly wet, towel still wrapped around his waist.

“Hey,” Johnny says. Mark is staring at him, and it makes him a little self-conscious, even if Johnny’s kind of gone a little overboard with the working out lately. He’s had a lot of pent-up energy. The gym was the only viable outlet. It’s horrible how much he feels like he’s grown dependent on Mark’s moaning to get him off properly, but that’s not something he’ll ever admit out loud. Hell, if this set-up they have were to end because Mark said so, Johnny wouldn’t even put up a fight.

Mark shakes himself, snapping out of whatever trance he’d been in just moments ago. Johnny tries to not think too hard.

He pads over to his bed and opens his laptop up. He’d bought a video for this—another one of those two men, one woman scenes—and it’s already loaded on his player. He bites the inside of his cheek and waits for Mark to say something about it, but Mark stretches out on his side of Johnny’s bed and simply says, “God, I’ve been so wound up.”

“Yeah,” Johnny replies. “Yeah, me too.”

Johnny doesn't bother with putting clothes on this time. If Mark’s seen him shirtless and has seen his dick, he figures there’s no point in being shy about being mostly naked now. He pointedly doesn’t think about the many, many times he’s imagined undressing Mark in his head since Johnny had figured he had the hots for him.

He hits play, and the scene starts, the woman entering the room where presumably her boyfriend and his best friend are playing some game on the couch together, the controllers in their hands while they pretend to be ribbing each other. It reminds Johnny of what he and his members look like when they’re being especially competitive with each other.

The woman plops down in between them, watching them game, but very quickly her hands start to wander to her on-screen boyfriend’s thigh, and he steadily gets more and more invested in her than in their game, and the friend says, “Uh, should I leave you two alone?”

The girl turns to the friend and says, “How about you stay and join us?” while she takes her top off to reveal this gorgeous pair of breasts cupped in see-through blue lingerie.

“She’s so hot,” Mark mutters softly, already starting to palm himself through his sweats. Johnny swallows. The video hasn't really done much for him thus far, but now that Mark’s started touching himself, Johnny can feel the twitch of interest between his legs.

Onscreen, the woman asks the men to kiss. Johnny had only skimmed through the video. He hadn’t known it played out like this. The two bros appear to hesitate, but then the friend leans in over her to kiss her supposed boyfriend, and the boyfriend makes an exaggerated moan as he deepens the kiss himself.

Sweat begins to bead on Johnny’s forehead despite the AC, despite the fact that he’s just showered. He moves his towel aside so he can take himself in his hand, sighing as the girl parts her legs and starts touching herself while the guys make out with her in the middle.

Wordlessly, Johnny passes his bottle of lube to Mark who takes it without missing a beat, the cap clicking open and closed before Mark changes positions, lies fully on his back, his sweats now halfway down his thighs from Johnny’s surreptitious glance, and Johnny doesn’t know how he’s gonna make it through this without giving himself away.

Johnny grips his thigh with his left hand, his cock with his right, and he grits his teeth before he can say anything dumb like, “Hey, do you want a hand?”

Mark isn’t even watching anymore. He’s got his eyes closed, and Johnny—Johnny is weak. He’s so fucking weak, his body moves to lie down as well, the sounds of the girl moaning now distant, far away from him now that he’s got his head on his pillow and it’s awful because lying down next to Mark means that Mark’s elbow hits Johnny’s left arm, and Johnny is so, so fucking hard, he loses all sense of shame, tugging the towel open so he’s there, completely naked on his bed, eye glued to his ceiling.

“Fuck, Johnny,” Mark mutters, and his voice is close. Closer than Johnny expects.

When Johnny turns his head, Mark is looking at him, looking at where Johnny’s got his cock in hand, his lips wet and parted.

“Y--you’re naked,” Mark says, and Johnny’s skin burns with want and shame, but he doesn’t move to cover himself up, not when he’s this far gone, not when Mark is looking at him like he wants to eat him.

“Does it matter?” Johnny asks, a little breathless. Johnny keeps stroking himself, precum slicking the way of his hand. Mark’s flushed all the way to his neck from what Johnny can see.

Mark swallows audibly and looks away.

“No,” he says.

Johnny spreads his legs a little wider, squeezing himself at the base to state off coming too soon. Mark had looked at him and hadn’t stopped his movements. Mark had looked at him and kept stroking his own cock. Johnny bites down on his tongue so hard it draws blood.

Johnny’s ready to write it off, to think it’s a fluke, nothing will come of this, they’ll just finish and get back to talking about some other mundane shit, but he feels Mark’s thigh move, brush up against Johnny’s, almost like it’s an accident, except for the fact that Mark’s breathing is more ragged, and when Johnny turns his head, Mark is looking again.

And Johnny realizes something new about himself: he likes being watched. He takes the bottle of lube that’s squished between their bodies, squeezes lube over his cock enough that some of it drizzles past his perineum, cold on its way down, and he turns his body slightly, curling in a little on his left side so he’s almost turning to face Mark. Here he still has some plausible deniability, but he’s on thin ice. He locks his parched lips, plants both feet onto the mattress, and deliberately fucks up into his fist slowly. He’s putting on a show, and Mark seems to be enjoying it, not even hiding the fact that he’s watching anymore.

“Like what you see?” Johnny asks, knowing full well that this could break the spell, that Mark could come to his senses and scramble off the bed and out of the room in a panic. Johnny’s not sure what he himself is, but he’s pretty sure that Mark’s straight, save for this one anomaly, the only aberration to Johnny’s working theory.

“I—yeah, hyung,” Mark whispers in Korean, like he can’t bring himself to tell such truths in the language they speak to each other in the most. “I wanna touch you.”

Johnny’s cock twitches as the words register, a spurt of precum sliding down the length of his shaft as Johny tries to not come right this second.

“Mark,” Johnny says in return, using every ounce of his brainpower to translate the words, like saying it in Korean makes it less damning some how. “I wanna—let me—.”

“Yes,” Mark replies, urgent, quick, the English slipping out in his haste. “God, please touch me.”

They curl in on each other, Mark’s eyes wide and scared and burning, their foreheads touching as Johnny reaches between them to replace Mark’s hand with his own, just as Mark does the same to his cock, and Johnny’s hips snap forward, pleasure zinging through his entire body at how different Mark’s hand feels from his—rougher, fingers only just able to circle Johnny’s girth, touch still tentative while Johnny strokes Mark’s dick with sure, firm movements, his thumb and index forming a ring. Johnny’s gathered enough information to know how Mark likes to touch himself, but he still asks, “Is this okay?”

Mark’s breathing is heavy and labored between them, his voice cracking when he says, “Yeah, just like that.” Mark’s hand is still a little too loose around Johnny’s cock, but it feels so good, he can’t bring himself to complain. The fact that Mark is touching him at all, that he’s so close, Johnny could kiss him, is beyond anything that Johnny can comprehend right now.

They’re both rocking their hips as they work their hands over each other, heat building in their mingled breaths, until Mark’s moaning more, the soft, “Johnny, Johnny fuck, please,” like a litany before his breath catches in his throat and Mark is spilling hot and messy over Johnny’s hand, over Johnny’s abdomen and his chest, and Mark’s cum hits Johnny’s cock, and Johnny is fucking done for, the slide of his own dick in Mark’s loose ring of fingers enough to send him hurtling over the edge himself.

Johnny comes harder than he ever has in his entire fucking life.

VII.

Johnny doesn’t hear from Mark again for days after he’d scrambled out of Johnny’s room with a stuttered, “I—I gotta go,” and this look on his face that Johnny can’t read exactly, but he’s fluent enough in Mark-speak and body language to know that it’s one of regret.

Johnny can’t even lie to himself and say that it doesn’t sting, because it fucking stings.

But he can’t say that he’s surprised, either.

It’s not like they’re unprofessional about anything. They have a photoshoot the next day and the photographer takes unit shots with the members, and he’s grouped in with Mark and Yuta and they get through it fine, with Mark laughing and Yuta being all over him and Johnny biting the inside of his cheek every so often because he wants to be able to touch Mark, too, the way Yuta does, but he can’t because it’s not usual for him.

Despite the general public opinion that Mark barely relies on his image training, Mark is actually very good at keeping his cards close to his chest when he wants to, and clearly, he wants to.

Their last time literally keeps Johnny up at night, which is awful because having a erection while Haechan asks Johnny for his opinion on Justin Bieber versus Shawn Mendes ranks very low on Johnny’s list of Acceptable Situations to Have a Boner In, but it’s not his fault that despite his sadness over Mark’s radio silence, his nerve endings seem to refuse to forget what Mark’s hand feels like wrapped around his dick.

It’s only a week later when Johnny hangs out in the tenth floor living room after an afternoon out with Yuta that Mark comes up to Johnny in the kitchen and leans against the counter, not quite looking at Johnny, but standing close enough that Johnny can hear the muttered, “Do you wanna stay here tonight?”

It’s an invitation, but Johnny isn’t about to fall into the Venus flytrap that is Mark’s spare coochie expression again, not if it means Mark will freak and kick Johnny out of his room, or worse, run out instead.

It hurts enough that Johnny is alone in this. He doesn’t need to add insult to injury.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mark,” Johnny says quietly, before adding, “I mean you kind of—legged it, which is fine.”

Johnny doesn’t expect to see the remorse on Mark’s face when he glances up.

“I panicked,” Mark says, pulling at the hem of his shirt. “I’m sorry.”

Johnny sighs, setting down the lone mug he’d been washing, and hunching over the sink with his shoulders slumped. He never thought he’d be here, weak for anyone like this. He knows it’s a bad idea, knows that if he goes in there and locks the door behind them, that he’s going to get hard and then jerk off to Mark jerking off and then they’ll go back to talking like nothing happened but Johnny genuinely no longer knows if he’s capable of doing that.

What kind of fucking rookie move is that, even?

He can’t even turn to Sehun for help on this because then he’d have to explain the entire casual mutual masturbation business and why he let it go on for months and months without any clear delineation of what the fuck they were actually doing. What it meant.

“But if you—like, if you don’t want to, it’s cool,” Mark says, and that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? Because Johnny _wants to_. He wants so much, he has to dig his nails into his palms just to keep from letting anything slip. He wants too much. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to help himself anymore unless he goes cold turkey.

“Uh,” he starts. “Yeah, I’m just—I don’t think we should do that anymore.” He throws in a shrug and hopes that’s enough to hide the fact that he hates everything he’s saying right now.

“Why—I mean.” Mark looks away sharply. Johnny watches Mark’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Okay. Okay.”

Johnny nods and pushes off from the counter.

VIII.

So Johnny isn’t good at showing restraint, apparently.

Not when it comes to Mark.

Not when Mark shows up at Johnny’s door three weeks after Johnny had called it quits, when Haechan is with his family for the evening.

Not when Mark looks up at him, tentative and timid, and says, “I miss you.”

Except—except that Mark doesn’t seem to be able to show any restraint, either, because the first thing that he does when Johnny steps aside and lets him in is ask if he can kiss Johnny, and it’s like Johnny’s metaphorically zip tied hands are cut loose because the next thing he knows is that he’s hauling Mark against the door and kissing him breathless.

Mark kisses like he’s trying to eat Johnny alive, with too much teeth and his tongue almost immediately in Johnny’s mouth, but Johnny doesn’t mind because his heart is in his fucking throat and he can barely breathe and Mark is kissing him and moaning into his mouth and it’s honestly everything Johnny has ever fucking wanted.

He has his hands on Mark’s hips, almost cool on Mark’s warm skin, and Mark is rutting up against him.

“Fuck, Johnny,” Mark whispers breathlessly as Johnny walks a path down Mark’s neck with his mouth. “Can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Yeah?” Johnny replies, pressing his crotch against Mark’s, drunk on the way Mark feels hard against him.

“Yeah.” It’s a moaned more than it’s actually said, really, and Johnny’s hands shake from their exploration of how fucking lovely the curves of Mark’s waist and his ass feel in Johnny’s hands. “Can’t touch myself without thinking of you.”

And Christ, that image is enough to have Johnny pulling Mark’s shirt up and over his head, wanting to feel skin on his skin while he imagines Mark imagining him.

Johnny has a million questions, all of them threatening to bubble over, but instead he chases Mark’s lips and Mark lets him, lets Johnny slip his tongue into his mouth and cup his crotch where Mark is rock solid now.

“Bed,” Johnny says, tugging on Mark’s wrist, and Mark follows, pushing his sweats down to reveal how he’s gone commando, and Jesus fucking Christ, Mark is standing naked at the foot of Johnny’s bed.

Johnny’s still fully clothed, and Mark doesn’t seem inclined for it to stay that way because he’s crawled on to the bed, eyes locked on Johnny, fingers slipping beneath the elastic of Johnny’s boxers and pulling down. It doesn’t take long for Johnny to divest himself of his shirt after that.

“Get over here,” Johnny says, and Mark moves to straddle him, resting his ass directly on Johnny’s erection, his dick slipping between the cheeks of Mark’s ass in a dry drag that makes this delicious friction. “What do you want to do?”

Mark kisses him first, gentle and almost chaste. “What we’re good at?” he says, takes Johnny’s hand, and brings it to his cock.

IX.

Johnny never really understood obsession before Mark. He has his guilty pleasures, sure, like gaming for too long, and spending way more than he should on cameras and clothes than necessary, and he had that brief phase where he couldn’t stop eating pizza from this one small hole in the wall joint that served their slices with spicy honey, but he’s never been _hooked_ on anything the way he’s hooked on Mark.

The first time he and Mark properly fuck, Johnny shoots his load in Mark’s ass after nearly five minutes because of how stupidly tight Mark’s hole is, and instead of withering away in shame, Mark lies back with his legs spread and tells Johnny to fuck him with hs fingers and blow him, and Johnny does exactly that.

Mark cums in three minutes.

They fuck every chance that they get—which isn’t a lot, but the changing of the seasons means that their members go out a lot more. They use the ruse of preparing for Sunny Side Up Part 2, which isn’t too far off from the truth, but admittedly the majority of the singing Mark is doing is when Johnny’s balls-deep inside of him and calling out for Johnny.

He even likes how Mark’s cum tastes, like he’s craving for it at every turn.

When they’re busy in the recording studio working on the next comeback, Johnny hauls Mark into an empty bathroom three floors up from where everyone else is, and gets on his knees while Mark fucks his face. It doesn’t even matter that Johnny has yet to record his parts for the day.

(It’s a miracle that his voice isn’t fucked up after that. Mark smiles at him from outside the recording booth when Johnny nails the one high note he’s given for their next ballad.)

“Whirlwind,” is the word that comes to mind when Johnny lies in bed and Mark’s sent in another selca, another meme he thought Johnny would like, another voice note of himself playing the guitar and singing a snippet of a song for Johnny.

And then one day, Johnny wakes up to find that the obsession has changed, grown, smoothened out.

“I love you,” sits inside his mouth like a new tenant still learning its way in this space. He fucks into Mark, wiping sweat from Mark’s forehead, and lets the tenant out into the balcony that is the space between their lips, and Mark spills over Johnny’s hand just as he says “I love you, too.”

That is, of course, the exact moment that Mark’s manager walks into the room.

X.

_“I want to be on your side, boys, I really do, but this is too risky. If this got out at all—well. You already know.”_

So it ends.

They’re lucky that the only real repercussion is that they have to come clean to Taeyong, which of course also means that they have to come clean to their group, though they do their best to contain it within 127.

The changes are subtle, or so Johnny thinks. They’re put in less things together. Sunny Side Up 2 is put on hold. He’s not sure what their manager has told the company, if ever, but he knows that Jong-hoon’s number one priority is making sure that nothing ever leaks out.

They have to scrub their conversations. They’re given new phones and phone numbers. They’re not allowed out in public alone unless there’s another member around. Whatever sordid selcas they’ve sent to each other are deleted lest they get released into the public somehow.

“What would have happened if one of your phones had gotten stolen?” Taeyong had asked, his voice pained. Johnny had no response. He could only look down at his hands, and the misery of finding the love of his life only to have their relationship be nipped in the bud.

It’s stifling, and it’s bad, but it could honestly be so much worse. Neither of them have been kicked out, and if Johnny is completely candid with himself, between him and Mark, it’s clear who the person easier to cut is, even if Mark will argue.

Johnny spends a lot of time in his room, which is for the best. He doesn’t much feel like having to face the rest of the group knowing how much he and Mark had possibly jeopardized their entire career. Sometimes Johnny wakes from sleep with a gasp and a racing heart because he has nightmares about photos leaking of him and Mark.

He once had a dream though that he was in the middle of an interview, and he’d been holding Mark’s hand the entire time, with Mark’s eager expression and the words, “Yeah, I do love Johnny,” leaving his mouth while the interviewer, some nameless woman, smiled at them both.

Johnny had woken up and cried for half an hour. Haechan had crawled into bed with him, and held him for just as long.

There’s no pretty resolution, Johnny thinks. Just days where they have no choice but to keep on keeping on. They work, they hang out together, they text and try to keep things light.

Eventually, Johnny manages to curb his craving.

Eventually, Mark starts teaching him small things. Small signs. Three taps on his ear when Johnny is looking. _I love you_. A thumb to the nose twice and a tap to his cheek. _I miss you_.

Small things.

Johnny will always want Mark’s body—will always want to be next to him, to hear him on the edge of falling headlong into pleasure, to fuck into him and make love the way Johnny should have been doing instead of the rough, desperate fucks they’d been going at while they thought they were invincible.

But this, too. This is nice.

Johnny locks eyes with him from across the dining table, and taps his ear three times.


End file.
